Being Dark in the Dark
by Chrmdpoet
Summary: Maybe it was the vulnerability that Tamsin saved for only her, the vulnerability of her quiet confessions and tender kisses when she felt like she had nothing to lose; maybe it was that vulnerability that made Bo realize just how much she felt in return.


**A/N: Begins in an altered version of the final scene of 4x08 with Kenzi, Tamsin, and Bo, and continues on. Enjoy. XO-Chrmdpoet**

Being Dark in the Dark

"There's gotta be something left to drink in this place," Tamsin muttered as she stepped around Kenzi. The last thing she needed was to hear about her former-annoyance-turned-friend-turned-kind-of-mother's bedroom escapades, and if she had to hear about said escapades, then alcohol was certainly required. Drunken ears hear less, and drunken brains care less.

Bo smirked at the look on Tamsin's face, the obvious disgust at the mere thought of Kenzi having sex with anyone. It was incredible how much Tamsin's extremely speedy childhood with Kenzi as her nurturer had changed their dynamic. The Valkyrie, despite being literally millennia older than Kenzi, seemed more like a teenager in the human's presence. It was strange and humorous, but more than anything, it was pretty incredible, and Bo found it terribly endearing.

"Uh, ah, no," Kenzi replied, her expression taut with guilt, "I, uh, I feel incredibly bad and I had no idea, but it's Yule and apparently…"

Tamsin sighed, the rules resurfacing in her mind. That's right. She was no longer welcome. "The Dark aren't allowed to enter a house where the Light are celebrating Yule, not after midnight," she finished for Kenzi, rolling her eyes a bit and half-heartedly shrugging her shoulders. "It's not the Fae way."

"Tamsin…" Kenzi tried, her heart aching as she watched the Valkyrie shrug again, wave off her concern, and simply walk away.

Bo's brows furrowed as she watched Tamsin leave, something stirring uncomfortably in the pit of her stomach. Maybe it was the haunt in Tamsin's eyes, and the way it only ever seemed to disappear when she was looking at Bo. Maybe it was the loneliness that seemed to radiate off of her like a rolling heat wave. Maybe it was the fact that Tamsin alone had somehow managed to make this strange and awful night exciting and worthwhile. Maybe it was the fact that as Bo watched Tamsin go, her mind suddenly became a flickering reel of moments, of confessions that she still could hear so clearly inside her head.

_Where do you get off being so perfect?_

_To me, you are._

_You shouldn't be real._

_You're not like anyone I've ever met…in any of my many lifetimes._

_I've got you._

"Um, hello? Earth to Bo-bo!" Fingers snapping in her face suddenly yanked Bo back to the present. Kenzi's bright blue eyes swam into her vision as her feisty best friend stood before her, now with her hands on her hips.

"Sorry, Kenz, what?" Bo asked, shaking her head slightly, but still unable to keep from glancing in the direction Tamsin had wandered off.

"Oh nothing," Kenzi drawled. "I've only been standing here talking to you for a year, but don't mind me. I'm totally fine with being ignored and all."

Bo absentmindedly reached out and squeezed Kenzi's shoulder. "Yeah, I…Sorry Kenzi. I gotta go."

"Go?" Kenzi asked, confused. "What do you mean 'go'? We've got shots to drink, lady, and a mysterious box to open, and also, I'm thinking of starting a full-blown debate over whether this stag thing is really Rudolph, because really? Red nose? That's all I'm sayin'."

Bo only partially registered the fast-paced rant billowing from her best friend's mouth. Her mind was elsewhere. She squeezed Kenzi's shoulder again and let her gaze flicker to ice blue before darting back into the growing dark. "I think I just need to be alone right now," Bo replied quietly, knowing that she had absolutely zero plans of actually being alone, but she had things to figure out, things she wasn't necessarily ready to talk about. "Besides, I'm Dark now, which means I can't go back in even if I wanted to. You heard Tamsin. It's not the Fae way."

Kenzi's shoulders slumped. "Oh, Bo-bo, come on," she started, but Bo just patted her and moved past her.

"It's fine, Kenz," she reassured as she headed off, turning to walk backwards so that she could smile at her friend. "Go back to Hale. It's Yule. You should be celebrating."

"But what about—" Kenzi called back, but Bo was already gone, heading off into the night. Kenzi sighed as she turned and placed her hand on the mysterious box. "You…?" she finished quietly before picking the box up and carrying it back inside.

* * *

><p>Bo didn't have a clue where Tamsin might have gone. Her first thought was to check all of the nearby bars, because if there was one thing that Bo had learned about the Valkyrie, it was that she liked to drink. There were five bars within the vicinity of the abandoned building she liked to call home, and Tamsin wasn't in any of them. She sighed as she left the last and stood outside, surveying her surroundings.<p>

"Tamsin," she muttered to herself, "where are you?"

She couldn't think of any place Tamsin might go to ride out the night, and given that prior to her finding-herself vacation Tamsin had been living with _them_, Bo was fairly certain that the blonde didn't have any other place to call home. She wasn't even sure that Tamsin had a cell phone, and even if she did, Bo didn't have the number.

After several long minutes of simply standing there, mulling over various locations in her mind, Bo shrugged and decided to just check them all, starting with the old gym that Dyson had bought and moved into. She knew Tamsin liked to work out and spar with Dyson every once in a while and had crashed there a few times, so she hoped it wasn't a long shot that the Valkyrie might have gone there for the night.

When Bo crept into the dark of the gym's large locker room, she yelped as she was suddenly caught off guard and slammed against the wall. She felt the press of sharp steel against her throat. Bo inhaled sharply with the force of her back hitting the wall, and when she did, the scent of her attacker washed over her.

"Tamsin?" she managed to choke out.

Instantly, the pressure against her body and throat dissipated before disappearing all together, and a few seconds later, fluorescent lights flickered overhead. Bo blinked several times as her vision adjusted to the flood of light, and once it cleared, she looked over to see Tamsin leaning against the wall near the light switch and staring at her.

"What are you doing here?" the blonde asked, her tone somehow both sharp and gentle.

"Well hello to you, too," Bo drawled. "Nothing like slamming a girl against the wall as a way of greeting."

Tamsin smirked. "Sounds like the perfect greeting for a Succubus to me."

"Mm," Bo hummed, chuckling. "Who doesn't love a little knife-play?"

"Losers," Tamsin replied dryly before walking over and collapsing onto a small pallet of blankets she had apparently thrown into a corner.

Bo lingered where she stood for a moment, simply taking in the sight of the blonde seated on the floor and reaching for a small bottle of booze. She then slowly made her way over to Tamsin's blanket pile.

"What are you doing here?" Tamsin asked again as Bo walked toward her.

Bo shrugged. "What are _you_ doing?"

"Oh, you know, just being Dark in the dark." She snorted at her own little joke, and Bo smiled softly.

"Were you sleeping?"

Tamsin shook her head. "Who sleeps when there's quality alcohol that clearly hasn't been drunk?"

Bo dropped down onto the blanket pallet beside the blonde, who held the bottle out to her. She took a drink, enjoying the familiar burn in her throat as the alcohol slid down. They sat with their backs against the wall and their thighs pressed together, and both noticed the distinct lack of space between them but neither commented on it. "So, you were just drinking, alone, with the lights off?" Bo asked, turning to arch a brow at the Valkyrie.

"No, actually, I was contemplating the meaning of life, Bo," Tamsin drawled, rolling her eyes as she took another swig. "Flapping my wings and dreaming of faraway lands."

Bo snorted with laughter at that, choking and patting her chest as she accidentally aspirated a bit of the booze she had just poured into her mouth. She coughed loudly and Tamsin chuckled and whacked her on the back. Once Bo was able to catch her breath, Tamsin bumped her shoulder with her own, and for the third time, quietly asked, "Why are you here, Bo?"

"Looking for you," Bo answered honestly.

Tamsin turned to look at her, the question clear in her eyes though she never put it to voice. Why?

Bo sighed. "Us Dark Fae have to stick together, right?" she joked, smiling softly and bumping Tamsin's shoulder in return.

Tamsin said nothing in response as her head bowed forward, her chin tucking to her chest. She took in a deep breath and let it out in a heavy sigh, and the sound seemed to seep into Bo's pores and prick at her painfully. "Tamsin," she said quietly, "I meant what I said in the creepy candy factory."

Tamsin looked up at her then, and Bo smiled almost sadly. "I really do forgive you," the succubus whispered. "I don't have any grudges."

Tamsin shook her head gently as she stared into Bo's eyes. "Why are you so good?" she asked, her voice strained. "Why do you care so much?"

Bo shrugged as she smiled at her. "Why do _you_?"

The conflict showed in Tamsin's eyes, so light they were nearly translucent. Her brows furrowed as she whispered, "I don't know." She took another long drink as her shoulders sagged and she pressed the back of her head against the wall. "I feel more human in this life than in any of the ones that came before," she admitted after an achingly long silence and several more drinks, "which doesn't make sense considering this is my last one. The last life is the strongest. I should feel more like a Valkyrie than ever before, but I don't."

Bo listened to the blonde talk, her chest aching at the strain in Tamsin's voice. Without thinking, Bo rested her hand on Tamsin's thigh and squeezed. "There's nothing wrong with being human," she whispered, and Tamsin chuckled wetly.

"Except for how vulnerable I feel," the Valkyrie replied. "I've never felt so…so…"

"So what?" Bo asked when it seemed that Tamsin wasn't going to finish.

Tamsin sighed and turned to lock gazes with Bo. "So much," she answered in a huff of breath heavy with the scent of alcohol, a lone tear slipping away from the corner of her right eye.

Those two little words seemed to suspend them in time, mere inches apart. The air thickened around them as they held still, sharing breath, and gazes locked. Bo could feel the moment fluttering along her flesh and in her chest and stomach. She felt it tightening in her throat and itching on her tongue.

Tamsin was no different. The breaths between them felt like soundless confessions, and Tamsin felt each one slither across her lips like her last vestiges of resistance escaping into the air. "You see?" she whispered so quietly that the words were hardly more than breath. "So _much_."

Tamsin's body collapsed against the wall, her gasp slamming into her lungs like ice and fire combined, when lips suddenly collided with hers. Bo's scent, something altogether undefined but familiar, washed over Tamsin's senses as the Succubus slipped atop her lap and straddled her thighs. An aching groan curled up from Tamsin's soul and slid between Bo's lips as gentle fingers tangled in blonde hair and Bo kissed her like she was something worth fighting for, worth keeping.

Bo felt Tamsin's body melt beneath hers, and then Tamsin's fingers slid along her thighs and gripped into Bo's hips. Every touch was heated and desperate, even with something as gentle and innocent as a kiss. Bo had come to learn that that was simply what it meant to be with Tamsin, to touch her and kiss her and connect with her. Hot and vibrant. Deep and winding. Seductive and sorrowed. Dark and desperate. Powerful.

The few moments they had shared had always been so intense, even when simple or playful or short. Tamsin affected her in a way that Bo had never experienced before and suspected she would never experience with another, no matter how strongly she may feel for anyone else. She loved Dyson, yes. She loved Lauren. But Tamsin…Tamsin was something entirely separate and different, and yet, oddly the same.

Bo's feelings for the Valkyrie confused her, yet at times, they felt all-consuming. She didn't know that she could put a name to it, but she knew now that she didn't want to lose it, those feelings, that connection. Maybe it was the vulnerability that Tamsin saved for only her, the vulnerability of her quiet confessions and tender kisses when she felt like she had nothing to lose; maybe it was that vulnerability that made Bo realize just how much she felt in return.

"Bo," Tamsin whispered breathlessly between hungry presses of desperate lips, and the sound made Bo ache in ways beyond words.

She pulled back for just a moment to look down into Tamsin's eyes, and she saw in them what Tamsin had earlier confessed. So much. So much vulnerability. So much humanity. So much.

"You are so beautiful," Bo breathed, and the smile that touched Tamsin's lips was almost shy. It lasted only a moment before the Valkyrie pulled her back down into a loving kiss.

Bo felt the urge only a second before she gave into it, swiping her tongue over Tamsin's bottom lip, before opening her mouth and sucking in a sharp breath, calling for the Valkyrie's chi.

Tamsin felt the familiar tug deep in her gut, felt her very essence claw its way up from her depths almost painfully, before it translated into a vibrant blue stream that slithered across her lips and through Bo's. It was the most incredible sensation, somehow both tantalizing and torturous.

Bo felt every cell in her body spark as Tamsin's chi spilled into her. It never failed to surprise her, the taste. The Valkyrie's chi was unlike anything Bo had ever tasted or experienced. It was a complex and almost heady explosion of flavor and sensation. Tamsin tasted like things Bo didn't understand, like experiences Bo had never known but could somehow name. She tasted like a thousand crimson sunrises over rolling green, like war cries and victory, like the pulse of history. Bo could practically feel Tamsin's many lives dancing on her tastebuds, swimming through her veins. Tamsin tasted like sorrow and independence, like ferocity and honor. She tasted like morning dew and Autumn. She tasted like the salt of sex and the bitter ache of goodbyes. She tasted electric and alive, so incredibly alive.

She tasted like love, the kind that transcends time and space; the kind that reduces people to tears.

Tamsin felt her heart swell and throb in her chest as Bo's feed came to an end. She licked her lips as she watched Bo pull back, eyes still glowing a warm, vivid blue, and she waited for Bo to make a move.

She didn't know what to expect from the Succubus, and she wouldn't ask for what she really wanted, but she hoped Bo would give it to her regardless. She hoped Bo would stay. She hoped, just this once, that Bo would forget about everything and everyone else, and just choose her. Choose Tamsin.

"Wow," Bo whispered in awe.

Tamsin smiled almost sadly. "You say that every time."

Bo's smile was bright in response. "For good reason," she replied. "Your chi…I've never tasted anything like it."

Tamsin chuckled. "Maybe I should advertise for all the hot succubi out there. 'Quality chi here. No more slumming it with the off-brand human kind. Get your quality chi here. Hundred bucks a suck!'"

Bo laughed out loud at that, still settled comfortably on Tamsin's lap. "Well, I would definitely be the first in line."

"You would probably be the only one in line," Tamsin drawled.

Bo poked Tamsin's side playfully. "Would that be so bad?"

"No." Tamsin's eyes flooded with sincerity as she reached up and ran her hands down Bo's arms, and in a quiet moment of vulnerability, she whispered, "You can have it all."

Bo sucked in a sharp breath as she let those words sink into her, and the honesty in Tamsin's eyes as the Valkyrie said the words was startling. It was riveting. Bo reached up and cupped a hand around Tamsin's cheek, letting her thumb slip down and stroke over a soft bottom lip. "I wish I could figure you out," Bo whispered, and Tamsin smiled softly at her.

"Back at you, Succulette," she sighed. "Right back at you."

They shared a gentle smile, hands slipping along one another's limbs unbidden. Not another word was spoken as Bo leaned in and pressed her lips to Tamsin's once more. Her heart was a conflicted mess, but Tamsin was a part of it. That much she knew, and tonight, she would let that part reign.

Tamsin clung to Bo as they kissed. She let her walls fall, or maybe the truth was that Bo had long ago crumbled them, and she poured every bit of herself into their kiss, into the moment, into this one night in which Bo, unlike any who had ever come before, chose her and only her.


End file.
